Guidance Notes for the Group Project

The group project is to give you some experience of working together in a small team on a single piece of work. The performance of a group depends not only on the sum of the work done by each individual; a good result requires co-operation, careful planning, frequent and helpful meetings and some "give and take".

The following are the details of this exercise

• Your project starts by the end of week 3, no later than January 27th (2006) and lasts for 6 weeks until March 10th. The report is due in on March 10th and the presentations will be arranged for sometime in the following week.
• Running the group:
  • You should arrange to meet twice a week at least and discuss what each member is doing and take the decisions for the next period.
  • Keep in contact with your supervisor (probably once a week)
  • Make plans for a fall back situation in case of unforseen circumstances.
  • You should keep a record of each meeting, what decisions were taken, who is to do which task, and so on. This will be called the logbook and should be handed in with the report..
• Do not be over ambitious. A simpler result that works well, or is well designed is better than a more complex one that satisfies neither of thee things.
• There will be one mark for the group. However, it is possible to award different marks for individuals in the group if the effort is seen to be very variable amongst members.
• Take an interest in all aspects of the project, not just your part.

The project will be assessed by three criteria in approximately equal proportions:

• The group planning and organisation, culminating in a presentation of 40 minutes including 10 minutes for questions;
• A report documenting the problem and details of your approach to its solution
• The technical expertise shown and quality of work done.

The marks for the Seminar course and group project will be in respective proportions of 7:3.